{"id":7801,"date":"2021-12-15T09:21:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T09:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=7801"},"modified":"2021-12-15T09:35:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T09:35:39","slug":"plant-krauss-a-silent-harmony-to-raise-the-roof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2021\/12\/15\/plant-krauss-a-silent-harmony-to-raise-the-roof\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant & Krauss: A SILENT HARMONY TO RAISE THE ROOF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Plant & Krauss:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A SILENT HARMONY TO RAISE THE ROOF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

says Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I watched a BBCtv documentary on Herman\u00b4s Hermits recently for a couple of reasons. I had always had a soft spot in my young teenage years for a number of reasons. I thought Peter Noone was quirky and their songs were good and I was disappointed when my dad turned down the opportunity to book them for a Round Table function as he had never heard of them. He instead booked Dave Berry from Sheffield, a man I would have the great pleasure of interviewing many years later, for an event that was still twelve months away. On the evening of the event Herman\u00b4s Hermits had confirmed that they were indeed Into Something Good, as they were sitting pretty at the top of the charts with that debut single. Even my dad had heard of them by then. Many, many years later I found myself living just down the road from one of the Hermits, so the affinity with their music was even further strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the documentary Noone said repeatedly how a unique selling point in the sound of Herman\u00b4s Hermits was the members innate ability to sing \u00b4together and create a natural sound that wasn\u00b4t simply about one singing a third higher or lower than the other. Their voices were so close to each other that created the most subtle of harmonies and a sound all of its own in much the same way as familial groups, like The Everly Brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That conversation put me in mind of Raising Sand, that album from 2007 by the unlikely pairing of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss that has been my playlists ever since. Perhaps I made that association because I was aware they had a forthcoming new album due for release that I was so looking forward to. Only a few days later a review by Mark Beaumont (right)<\/em><\/strong> in The Independent of Raise The Roof by Plant and Krauss. It reminded me again that I must acquire this new album and a brief appearance by the artists on The One Show on BBC tv that same evening demonstrated the album will prove to have been well worth our long wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Described on Twitter as a rock hack extraordinaire (NME, Guardian, Independent, Uncut, Classic Rock, etc). Mark Beaumont is a music journalist and his work has appeared in publications including NME, The Times and Melody Maker. He has written numerous music biographies and his debut novel [6666666666] is available on Kindle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to Amazon and reviews on Goodreads, [6666666666] (left)<\/em><\/strong> is more than just a pan-global, inter-dimensional hunt for the perfect demise, and its chilling conclusion. It is a metaphysical horror story narrated by the monster; the heart-breaking drama of a family destroyed; a portrayal of insanity at its most unsettling. Combining the structural flair of David Mitchell\u2019s Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas with the cutting edge psychodrama of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahnuik, it is a visionary dissection of the fundamental gristle of human life \u2013 it\u2019s flaws, frustrations, inter-connections and fleeting joys – as viewed through the very jaws of death itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u00b4s certainly a title for me to put on my Christmas reading list but for now I was more interested in reading what Mr. Beaumont had to say about Raise The Roof, the new, second album from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 For Robert Plant, (below right)<\/strong> collecting his first ever clutch of Grammys in 2009, <\/em>wrote Beaumont in The Independent.  was a moment of vindication.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00b4Every time we went up to the podium, I kept seeing Coldplay start to stand up\u00b4, he told Vanity Fair recently of the night that the 2007 covers album Raising Sand swept up all five awards it was nominated for, \u201cand I\u2019d say, \u2018Sit down! My turn! F*** off!\u2019\u201d Alison Krauss \u2013 his collaborator on the record and a Grammy veteran, having previously bagged 21 over a celebrated career in bluegrass and country music \u2013 on the other hand, was distracted by urgent problems developing beneath the surface.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00b4I was mostly concerned with my undergarments, under what I was wearing,\u00b4 Krauss (left)<\/strong> laughed down the phone to Matt Beaumont of the Independent from her Nashville home. \u00b4That was a lot of work. Haha! That\u2019ll really keep you occupied, that whole process of trying to keep everything in its rightful spot. I do remember walking backstage trying to adjust all kinds of things and [Robert] was like \u2018come on now\u2019\u2026 but he had a very nice night and it was fun in that, but the undergarments were unfortunately taking a lot of my attention\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this makes Plant and Krauss sound like an old married couple out for an anniversary treat, it reflects the obvious, natural musical connection between these two revered figures from across the cultural divide between roots and rock. Raising Sand, reinventing 13 lesser-known gems from the annals of blues, country and Sixties pop handpicked by producer T Bone Burnett, was a rich and evocative marriage of Plant\u2019s earthy blues impetuosity and Krauss\u2019s sumptuous bluegrass precision, the grizzled rock mystic bringing grit to the polish of the pristine country queen. And almost fifteen years on, with their repertoire once more in the hands of Burnett and many of the same Nashville players, they\u2019ve repeated the trick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It really felt like we\u2019d probably record again\u00b4,  Krauss says of the lengthy gap between Raising Sand and the pair\u2019s equally noir and engrossing new album Raise The Roof. \u00b4I didn\u2019t know when and you don\u2019t want to force anything or do things out of time. Those timelines of things, you don\u2019t always know why they are the way they are. I wasn\u2019t sitting around, and neither was Robert, going, \u2018hmmm, I wonder why we\u2019re not\u2026?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following their 2009 Grammys success, Krauss explains, the pair did reconvene in a studio to start early work on a follow-up, but after three years of working on Raising Sand, recorded in 2006, a break was in order. Other projects \u2013 Krauss with her band Union Station and Plant with the Band Of Joy and the Sensational Space Shifters \u2013 intervened; the break became a decade.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A fortuitous collision on the same bill at Willie Nelson\u2019s Outlaw Festival tour in Indianapolis in September 2019, though, brought them back into each other\u2019s sphere, and the songs for Raise The Roof (right)<\/strong> came easily. A shared love of Calexico\u2019s beautiful and meaningful borderlands groover Quattro (World Drifts In) sent Plant back to Nashville to rekindle the old spark.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4With Alison and I, we\u2019re leagues apart in so many elements,\u00b4 he told the Independent reporter from his home on the Welsh borders, \u00b4and then when you realise it, that\u2019s part of the magic of the whole thing. It comes from our continued surprise at how we can twist songs round and round. It\u2019s never really appropriate for the limitations of my voice, some of the country stuff that we have touched on, but when we get it right, and the right key to sing in for the both of us\u2026 it\u2019s just so surprising. When we sing we just look at each other and laugh\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just a wrought-in-heaven synergy of voices that\u2019s key to the Plant\/Krauss charm, although that remains wonderfully evident as they reimagine The Everly Brothers\u2019 upbeat The Price Of Love as a seamy alcoholic\u2019s lament or dig into the darkness at the heart of Ola Belle Reed\u2019s gallows ballad You Led Me To The Wrong, Geeshie Wiley\u2019s creeping voodoo junk-rag Last Kind Words or Aubrie Sellers\u2019s hardship rocker Somebody Was Watching Over Me. It\u2019s also their love and respect for the material \u2013 even as they lure much of it out into the depths of some dusky bayou \u2013 and each others\u2019 roots.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Krauss recalls their first conversation, at a Leadbelly tribute Plant had invited her to play with him in Ohio in 2004; Plant waxed lyrical about a \u00b4mysterious, beautiful album by bluegrass banjo legend Ralph Stanley (left)<\/strong> called Clinch Mountain Gospel, a key text amongst Krauss\u2019s bluegrass community. \u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4He talks about listening to the record in the Seventies, driving through the Appalachian Mountains\u00b4, she says, \u00b4because he was so mystified in general about his musical life, and in the music that came out of a certain region. To hear him bring up our people was really moving\u2026 I came home after that trip and my brother said \u2018what\u2019s he like?\u2019 and I said \u2018he\u2019s like us.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was she daunted to meet him at all?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4No, not at all. I was surprised. I didn\u2019t have any idea what he was like, I\u2019d seen him on MTV in the Eighties and loved my own part of growing up with new music from him. My brother and I loved Big Log, we thought that was stunning. I was surprised at what a genuinely kind and generous person [he was], and a joy to be around\u2026 He\u2019s a very generous, kind person. You hear that someone lights up the room but that really is a true statement for him\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Plant\u2019s part, he appreciated the closeness of the bluegrass world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It\u2019s family\u00b4, he says. \u00b4They\u2019re a tight family, and I appreciate all of that. There\u2019s something about coming from a sturdy root\u2026 there\u2019s a charm that it exudes\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He became freshly fascinated by the arrival of the earliest punk acts, \u201cborn out of a new generation taking things really back to basics\u201d to challenge \u201cthe self-indulgence of the late Seventies\u201d. And he took time to \u201cexplore the new worlds that I\u2019ve found since I first went over to Nashville in 2005 or \u201906\u201d, specifically citing the under-appreciated work of Los Lobos. \u201cIt was another great revelation of how charming and magnificent these other great portals are as they swing open \u2013 it was endless, looking in there\u2026 It\u2019s given me a lot of spirit and heart, and also a whole different way of looking at the deal that I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The private and introvert Krauss, meanwhile, gained a fresh appreciation for her life as a musician: \u00b4You get wrapped up in the process of doing what you do and oftentimes you forget just how special it is\u00b4. But she also found herself fretting over the future of the bluegrass scene (\u00b4everybody mingles, it\u2019s like a big family reunion every time you go out, and the pandemic takes an event like that and shatters it\u00b4), and America itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4That\u2019s a very sad subject, the division in the country\u00b4, she sighs. \u00b4There\u2019s such a romanticism with unity among the people and a lot of pride. We\u2019re blessed to be able to have elections but to see such a lack of unity any more… I\u2019m not trying to be a political person and I never talk about it, but there was so much division in every way\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plant tires quickly of questions on politics. Of Boris Johnson\u2019s pandemic record he jokes: \u00b4I\u2019ve watched a lot of Monty Python, put it like that, and I didn\u2019t realise it was a new run!\u00b4, and on Brexit: \u00b4The whole place is in uproar right now, there\u2019s a million errors and at the same time every day somebody somewhere brings us some light\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When asked for his thoughts on so-called cancel culture, he becomes defensive and dismissive. Is it a good thing that Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u2018rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019 behaviour (right)<\/strong> wouldn\u2019t be considered acceptable today?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4How can I even comment? It\u2019s such an oblique question. We\u2019ve been hearing it since the beginning of time, and who else does it apply to? What is going on? Is it footballers, politicians\u2026 some guy who\u2019s just fixing his garage? For f***\u2019s sake\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does he ever worry about the modern moralists of Twitter getting their hands on Hammer Of The Gods?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4How many times has that been round and round and round? It\u2019s bullshit. It was written under a pseudonym, the whole thing is a fiasco\u2026 It\u2019s a very old fable, and quite hackneyed I think\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One thing is certain \u2013 after far too long a wait, Plant and Krauss (left) <\/strong>have once more proved themselves a duo of formidable alchemy. Maybe not raising the roof, but undoubtedly raising the bar.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their vocals are so perfectly aligned that the harmony is also silenced as the two voices sit together as one, somehow creating the sound of our times. We will shortly bring our own review of the album, as well as a flavour of the comments from major press outlets, but for albums this important by artists this good, there is no need to wait. Mr. Beaumont\u00b4s opinion is sufficient and come on, we might steer you down sidetracks & detours, but its always worth the walk isn\u00b4t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The primary source for this article was  written by Mark Beaumont for The Independent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our occasional re-postings Sidetracks And Detours are confident that we are not only sharing with our readers excellent articles written by experts but are also pointing to informed and informative sites readers will re-visit time and again. Of course, we feel sure our readers will also return to our daily not-for-profit blog knowing that we seek to provide core original material whilst sometimes spotlighting the best pieces from elsewhere, as we engage with genres and practitioners along all the sidetracks & detours we take.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was collated by Norman Warwick, a weekly columnist with Lanzarote Information and owner and editor of this daily blog at Sidetracks And Detours.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman has also been a long serving broadcaster, co-presenting the weekly all across the arts programme on Crescent Community Radio for many years with Steve, and his own show on Sherwood Community Radio. He has been a regular guest on BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Radio 4.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a published author and poet he was a founder member of Lendanear Music, with Colin Lever and Just Poets with Pam McKee, Touchstones Creative Writing Group (where he was creative writing facilitator for a number of years) with Val Chadwick and all across the arts with Robin Parker.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Monday to Friday,<\/strong> you will find a daily post here at Sidetracks And Detours and, should you be looking for good reading, over the weekend you can visit our massive but easy to navigate archives of over 500 articles.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The purpose of this daily not-for-profit blog is to deliver news, previews, interviews and reviews from all across the arts to die-hard fans and non- traditional audiences around the world. We are therefore always delighted to receive your own articles here at Sidetracks And Detours. So if you have a favourite artist, event, or venue that you would like to tell us more about just drop a Word document attachment to me at <\/strong>normanwarwick55@gmail.com<\/strong><\/a> with a couple of appropriate photographs in a zip folder if you wish. Beiung a not-for-profit organisation we unfortunately cannot pay you but we will always fully attribute any pieces we publish. You therefore might also. like to include a brief autobiography and photograph of yourself<\/strong> in your submission. We look forward to hearing from you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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songfacts                                           en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SongFacts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing is certain \u2013 after far too long a wait, Plant and Krauss have once more proved themselves a duo of formidable alchemy,… not so much raising the roof as raising raising the bar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7819,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801\/revisions\/7819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}